Firstly and I'm sure on behalf of everyone here I send my support to all at Devialet after the recent atrocities in Paris. I sincerely hope that no-one from the company was directly affected by horrors of last night.
On a lighter topic today I bit the bullet and 1 became 2 (+ dialogue)
Whilst the 45 day trial is on for the new speaker and my initial Phantom I thought why not - If i get loads of software issues I can return one of both with no fear of being out of pocket.
Got them home, set them up which was painless, I had to re-run the setup twice as I got the speakers the wrong way round - all my fault though.
So far so good, looking forward to listening properly once the kids have gone to bed.
First impressions - fantastic as you may imagine however I think a solo Phantom does a better job than I've seen it get credit for here - so far 2 are nice but whether they are £1,650 nice remains to be seen. Luckily now I have the option of dropping down to one again after a few days of listening to see difference.
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(14-Nov-2015, 19:28)BowlOfPetunias Wrote: [ -> ]Firstly and I'm sure on behalf of everyone here I send my support to all at Devialet after the recent atrocities in Paris. I sincerely hope that no-one from the company was directly affected by horrors of last night.
On a lighter topic today I bit the bullet and 1 became 2 (+ dialogue)
Whilst the 45 day trial is on for the new speaker and my initial Phantom I thought why not - If i get loads of software issues I can return one of both with no fear of being out of pocket.
Got them home, set them up which was painless, I had to re-run the setup twice as I got the speakers the wrong way round - all my fault though.
So far so good, looking forward to listening properly once the kids have gone to bed.
First impressions - fantastic as you may imagine however I think a solo Phantom does a better job than I've seen it get credit for here - so far 2 are nice but whether they are £1,650 nice remains to be seen. Luckily now I have the option of dropping down to one again after a few days of listening to see difference.
I am shure that you keep both. 2 is much better
well going from 1-2 is definitely a marked improvement, for me I have to rationalise the £1,390 x2 and £250 for the Dialog and whether I believe it's justified.
Also I'm interested to see if I get dropouts/glitches/Phantoms losing config etc that others have seen as that would be a dealbreaker. So far they've not missed a beat technically which is very good news. For anyone interested I have the dialogue in the middle of the two phantoms that are about 2m apart, it's connected via ethernet into a HP switch that goes back to a Virgin Media Superhub2 (Yuck, horrid thing). Optical from a Sonos Connect goes into the right Phantom as it was already plugged in there from when I had no dialogue and I couldn't be bothered to move it.
Is a Virgin Media Superhub 2 that horrid? I'm sure it's not the last word in router quality, but I have one and to be honest in terms of running any wifi devices I have in the house, it appears to work flawlessly! Is it really that bad?
I've had 3 in as many months - same fault every time, the wifi switches itself off until you reboot it. I've spent far too much time on the phone to VM going through pointless troubleshooting steps that are just a call centre rep going through a script rather than actual troubleshooting. If I could use another router I would, sadly of course there's nothing else that can connect to the VM network and I'd rather not put in in bridge mode and have two routers in the study.
YMMV though - I was fine for about a year then the problems started - presumably with a bad raft of software updates thet VM sent out.
I've been thinking about my system and my options are (So far lol)
- Things go really well with 2 Phantoms and I can't bear to live without them - stay as is. Financial ouch but great sound.
- I decide that 1 Phantom is enough and the cost/value of two doesn't stack up or I experience technical issues with a 2 Phantom/Dialog setup - Then I'd use the Devialet 45 day offer and return the Dialog and 2nd Phantom.
- Cost for 2 Phantoms is too much or I have technical issues and decide I want stereo sound rather than a mono Phantom - in this case I may chop the lot back in and go for 2x new model Sonos Play 5's and the Sonos sub (Bear in mind I already have a Sonos Connect, 2x Play:1's and an original Play:5 in the house).
I can predict that with Sonos I'll miss the dazzling high's of the Phantoms amongst other things - I know bass is their 'party trick' but it's the clarity without distortion of the top end that gets me every time. It's as if there's 'space' in between all the drivers (I'd make a rubbish audio reviewer, I haven't got all the metaphors for a great setup!).
To give the Sonos credit though, with the rather excellent sub they sell it's a lot of system for less than 1 Phantom and a Dialog at 2x £429 for the Play:5 and £550 for the sub £1,408.00 total vs £1,390.00 for a White Phantom.
All first world problems I know, out of all the hobbies we could have picked, why did we pick hifi
First world problems indeed
We are so lucky
I'm doing my best not to cave in and make it three! If I was to receive a 30% off email from Devialet it would be hard to knock it back.
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Having a pair of them looks nice in your setup though!
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(16-Nov-2015, 08:38)sleach Wrote: [ -> ]Having a pair of them looks nice in your setup though!
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Funnily enough the first thing my other half said when I explained 'the plan' (or lack of) was - something along the lines of 'but I like the look of these'.
She doesn't see the need for two though.